Massenet comes often to see me. He is a great man now. He and Saint-Saëns are the most famous musicians of France at the present moment. Massenet has never forgotten old kindnesses; and, no matter where he is, whether on a platform at a concert, or in a drawing-room full of people, he always plays as a prelude or an improvization the first bars of a favorite song of his I used to sing. He sends me a copy of everything he composes, and always writes the three bars of that song on the first page. Among others we find our friend Marquise de Podesta. She is a sort of lady in waiting to Ex-Queen Isabella of Spain. I went to see her at the Queen's beautiful palace in the avenue Kléber. I was delighted when she asked me if I would like to make the acquaintance of the Queen. I went two days later to what she called an "audience." The Queen received me in a beautiful room lined with old Gobelin tapestry and furnished with great taste. She is rather heavy and stout and wears a quantity of brown hair plastered over her temples, which does not give her the height a Queen ought to have. She was very amiable, asked many questions about places and people I knew, and before I was aware of it I found myself spinning out lengthy tales. I should have much preferred she do the talking. [Illustration: JULES MASSENET AT THE HEIGHT OF HIS CAREER From an autographed photograph taken in 1894.] The Empress Eugénie is now here. And fancy! living at the Hôtel Continental, right opposite the gardens of the Tuileries. I have not seen her for six years (since Cap-Martin). Baron Petri, who always accompanies her, answered my note asking if I might come to see her, saying that the Empress would receive me with pleasure. You may imagine my emotion at seeing her again. I found her seated at the window facing the Tuileries. How could she bear to be so near her old home? As if reading my thoughts, she said: "You wonder that I came here to this hôtel. It is very sad. There are so many memories. But it seems to bring me nearer _mon fils bien aimé_. I have him always before me. My poor Louis! I can see him as a little boy, when he used to drive out in his carriage, always surrounded by the _cent gardes_." She told me of the terrible journey she had made to South Africa. She had wished to go over the same route that the Prince had taken on his way to Zululand. How dreadful it must have been for her! Can one imagine anything more tragic? Her only child, whom she loved beyond anything in the world, whom she hoped to see on the throne! The future monarch of France! a Napoleon! to be killed by a few Zulus, in a war not in any way connected with France. The Empress appeared weighed down with grief; nevertheless, she seemed to like to talk with me. I wish I could have heard more, but the arrival of the Princess Mathilde interrupted us, and I left.